Delaware Punch: Here's the story of a vanished soft-drink favorite in Jackson

NOTE: A couple readers of Tuesday's column posted comments asking about Delaware Punch, once a favorite soft drink in Jackson. I intended to post a link to a 2005 column I wrote about Delaware Punch until I discovered that column evidently does not exist on the Internet. Until now. Below it is reprinted. Unfortunately, I believe the general store that was then making and selling Delaware Punch is no longer in business. Here it is:

Love comes in many flavors.

One of Jackson's sweetest passions tasted a bit like grapes drenched in sugar.

It was Delaware Punch, the beverage Jackson loved and lost.

After 40 years, the soft drink is back in town to offer another swig.

Invented in Texas, Delaware Punch was bottled in Jackson for decades by the Eberle Bottling Co.

Delaware Punch had no bubbles because it was not carbonated.

Its grape taste was mingled with other, less distinctive flavors. It was the color of Merlot wine and sweet as the glaze on a Hinkley doughnut.

For some reason, Delaware Punch became a big hit in Jackson.

"You could buy it in the grocery store, but I remember people coming into the plant to buy it by the case, " Barbara Eberle said in a 1998 interview.

Edward Schweda, one partner who bought the bottling company in 1964, said Delaware Punch was Eberle's second biggest seller, behind Frostie Root Beer.

Jackson stores once gave Eberle beverages more shelf space than Coke or Pepsi products, Schweda said. And Delaware Punch was the only soft drink served at the city's favorite restaurant, the Regent Cafe.

"Kids loved it, but adults loved it, too, because there was no carbonation, " Schweda said.

Adults of a certain age still pine for it.

They lined up in March when Ella Sharp Museum served Delaware Punch made from concentrate at a reception to open the "Brewed and Bottled in Jackson" exhibit.

"We had people on opening day who came in just to taste the Delaware Punch, not to see the exhibit, " said curator Jim Zuleski. "People 60 to 75, that age group, remember it with great fondness."

The Eberle company went out of business in 1965, and Delaware Punch disappeared from store shelves.

Disappeared, that is, until recently.

Delaware Punch is not bottled commercially anywhere in the world, but a few bottles are available again at one store near Jackson.

Yesterday's General Store, which sells nostalgic pop and candy at 1226 E. McDevitt Ave., makes Delaware Punch from concentrate and sells it in plain, screw-top bottles.

The price, $2.50 a bottle, will startle those who remember paying $1.40 a case. Refills cost $1.50 if you bring back the bottle.

To test how the flavor rates today, I served two bottles to my children without revealing it is old-fashioned.

My daughter, 15, said it tasted like a melted Popsicle. It was so sweet she claimed the sugar molecules scratched her throat.

My son, 11, loved it and pestered me to buy more.

"I've never seen anything that even remotely tastes like it, " said Grace Smith, owner of Yesterday's.